Entertainment Value
by Monopoly
Summary: The Doctor has never had a companion who couldn't keep themselves busy before; Donna is a little too social to keep herself entertained. The TARDIS may never get serviced again. Ten/Donna friendship. No spoilers.
1. Chapter 1

This is a story about the in-betweens of the Doctor and Donna's adventures. Not any specific adventures, mind you. I doubt there will be any spoilers for Season 4 (although I did manage to catch the first episode—David Tennant and Catherine Tate were born to act together, that's all I'm saying) and I know there won't be any in this particular chapter. This chapter is a short little introductory thing, mostly because if the whole story is put down in one big chunk it doesn't flow quite right.

Disclaimer: Doctor Who: Not Mine.

The Doctor lunged into the TARDIS, just managing to close the doors before a horde of angry aliens made it inside. He staggered up to the console, initiating the dematerialization sequence while studiously avoiding Donna's face. He succeeded for a whole thirty seconds, at which point he made the mistake of looking up to check a monitor and subsequently caught Donna's eye. Approximately seven seconds after that, they both burst into uproarious laughter.

For the Doctor, this was the best part of traveling with Donna. They raced across time and space, had shenanigans, then came back to the TARDIS and had a laugh at the absurdity of their life in general. It was the perfect platonic relationship, and the Doctor loved it.

Best mates for an indeterminate amount of time, as he liked to say, mostly to avoid the "forever" that he felt had doomed he and Rose apart. Never tempt fate.

For Donna, the best part was what came after the obligatory laugh at life. Not that she didn't love running around the universe and getting into trouble--she did, probably more so than was healthy--but the real good times, the ones she would always remember after this chapter of her life had ended, happened after the danger was over. She would go take a shower, because they did a lot of running and running made her sweaty which made her feel gross. There wasn't a faucet with knobs that you could turn in the shower, but the TARDIS always got the water flow and temperature just right when she asked, which she had found a little alarming until the Doctor had explained that for all intents and purposes, the TARDIS was a girl. After her ritual shower (perfect every time), she would re-dress in a clean t-shirt and slacks and search out the Doctor.

The first time this happened, he was not prepared.


	2. Chapter 2

And here's some back story to get us up to the present

And here's some back story to get us up to the present. The story proper, chronicling the "in-betweens" of the Doctor and Donna's adventures, will start next chapter.

Donna had found him in the console room, fiddling with some loose wires. She leaned over so that from his position under the console, he had no choice but to look at her.

"Hey." she said mildly.

"Hello." he replied in his absent "I'm doing things you don't understand go away" voice.

Donna leaned over a little farther. "Entertain me."

The Doctor paused mid-wire-fusion to raise an eyebrow. "What, running about and saving the universe isn't enough for you?"

Deep breath. "No, not really." She folded her arms over her chest and gave him a stern look.

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "What do you want to do, then?"

"Oh, I don't know. Is there a T.V. somewhere on this thing? I've been missing my game shows. You ever seen Big Brother?"

The look of sudden absolute horror that crossed his face at that point threw Donna off. Of course her crazy Martian boy would have trauma issues from a simple reality show.

"Alright, then, no Big Brother. The Weakest Link, maybe?"

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, the Doctor's entire face fell and his lower lip actually _wibbled_. Donna gave up on making suggestions.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Come on up here and give me a hug. Come on."

The Doctor obediently pulled himself up and buried his head in Donna's neck for a moment. After a few seconds, during which Donna felt a suspicious bit of moisture on her neck, he pulled back looking as cheerful and unbothered as ever. "Well, entertainment, I can do that. As a matter of fact, I have an entire library tucked away the back of the TARDIS. I'll bet you can find something interesting to look at!" And he was off, pulling her by the hand through the winding corridors of the TARDIS.

It turned out that he did have an entire library, bigger than the one Donna had visited as a child in London and outfitted with comfortable furniture and a fireplace.

The Doctor curled up in an armchair with a collection of Shakespeare's sonnets--"Well, I loved Shakespeare before, but now that I know he wrote half his sonnets about me and Martha it's even more interesting!"--and Donna went in search of a good book.

After several minutes of searching, she found a suitably interesting book and made her way back to the little common area where the Doctor was still buried in Shakespeare. Donna settled on the couch next to his chair with "A Comprehensive Study of the Human Psyche as Compared to the Time Lord's Mind", apparently written by a lopsided concentric circle. Being the kind of person who feels compelled to look at every single page in a book, Donna opened the front cover of the book to search out a publication date. She didn't find one, but what she did find was much more interesting. There was a note written on the inside of the front cover.

"_Susan_," it began, "_I hope that this book will sate your desire for knowledge of humans. Hopefully, once that great thing happens, you will become enamored with a species that lives on a more interesting planet_."

Donna snickered. The writer was obviously a Time Lord. Apparently they were all as amusingly pompous as the Doctor. The end of the note was intriguing, though--"_All my love, Grandfather_".

"Oi," Donna said loudly, poking at the Doctor's knee, "lookit this."

The Doctor obediently dug himself out of his book and peered at the book that Donna was holding open for him.

"Who were they, then, Susan and Grandfather?" she asked him curiously. "I suppose you ran around with Time Lord companions before you came to Earth proper?"

The Doctor snorted derisively. "Oh, not hardly. Susan was my granddaughter. The first time I came to Earth it was because she was fascinated with humans." then, at Donna's disbelieving look, "No, really. Back then I had white hair and everything. This certainly isn't my first body."

Donna grinned, thinking of her own white-haired grandfather. "Did you take her stargazing?"

The Doctor stared into the fire, a sudden far-away look in his eyes. "Stargazing? No. Oh, Donna, I took her to the _stars_..."

After that he had joined her on the couch and he spent the rest of the evening telling her all about the adventures he had shared with his granddaughter. He turned out to be a brilliant storyteller, filling his tales with sound effects and wild gestures, sometimes even leaping off the couch to act something out.

Hours later, when the Doctor had finally talked himself out and he and Donna were slumped against each other on the couch giddy from laughing until they cried and crying until they had to laugh again, the Doctor pulled himself up, patted Donna on the arm, and shyly admitted that he hadn't had so much fun in a long time before disappearing--not, to Donna's surprise, back to the console room, but to his own bedroom.

It was a turning point in their relationship.

The next time she went looking for him he produced a pack of playing cards and taught her how to play Venusian blackjack, and the time after that she complained that she was hungry so he took her to the kitchen and showed her how to prepare Blue Broccoli Casserole which was a delicacy of the Deigns system, and the time after that they spent four hours playing dress-up in the wardrobe room, and the time after that the Doctor sheepishly explained that he really did need to do some work on the TARDIS but Donna could help if she really wanted, so she ended up learning the names of half the Doctor's tools and by the time they were finished she could've recalibrated a whatsit all by herself.

That night, before they went to bed, Donna bumped the Doctor's shoulder purposefully. "I had a good time tonight, mister."

The Doctor gave her a friendly bump back. "Quite right, too."

And there they were.


	3. Chapter 3

Lalalala, new chapter hooray. I don't feel like the feel of this one matches up with the rest of the story, but I like it, so there we go. I hope you enjoy it.

Disclaimer: This Doctor Who you speak of, it is not mine.

It was just after an awkward run-in with an angry slime creature that Donna managed to get the Doctor to sit down in front of a television.

Upon their return to the TARDIS, he had suggested another (supposedly less hostile) planet, and Donna had suggested he get stuffed.

After a shower and change of clothes, she decided she wasn't as angry with him as she had previously thought, and set out to find him.

After checking the console room, library, kitchen, med room and doubling back to the console room to check under the grating, she stared up at the ceiling in pure frustration.

"Where _is_ he?" she demanded irritably, not sure who she was asking. It was for that reason that she was surprised when a door appeared in the wall in front of her, apparently out of nowhere.

Then again, she _was_ in an apparently semi-sentient space ship, so she supposed it might not be too unusual. So she opened the door.

It was a bedroom—a small, sparsely furnished, warm-colored bedroom. The lone dresser was covered with photographs and papers, some framed and some not, but Donna didn't really notice it—her eyes were on the only other piece of furniture in the room, the bed on which the Doctor was sitting.

He was bowed over, head in his hands, lacking his coat and shoes as though he had started to undress and then lost the initiative. For once, he actually looked old—and Donna almost considered not bothering him.

Almost.

"Oi," she started, flopping onto the bed beside him, "I'm bored."

The Doctor jumped as though she had struck him. "Donna!"

"Doctor."

The Doctor's voice rose in pitch to match his startled expression. "You're in my bedroom!"

"Oh, is that what this is? Lovely colors, although you could do with a bit more décor. A window, maybe. You could scare up some artificial sunlight in this old box, couldn't you?" Donna chattered blithely, leaning back on her hands and completely ignoring the flustered look on the Doctor's face.

"You're in my _bedroom_!"

"I'm bored, too."

The Doctor opened and closed his mouth several times, and Donna felt proud that she had rendered the usually motor-mouthed alien speechless.

"I suppose," he managed finally, "that it's absolutely impossible for you to keep yourself entertained."

"Yep." she declared proudly, taking care to pop the end just like he always did. "Life is no fun at all if you're not around. So let's do something!"

The Doctor gave a long-suffering sigh. "All _right_." he muttered petulantly. "We're not doing anything active, though, I'm _tired_. Come on!"

Donna bounced to her feet and grinned triumphantly. "After you then, space boy."

The Doctor rolled his eyes and led her through the twisting corridors of the TARDIS, refusing to give her any hints about their destination. After several minutes of almost-jogging, he pulled her into what appeared to be a small den.

"Ohh, let me guess," Donna said sarcastically, "parlor games."

"Donna Noble, I'm disappointed in you. After all the time you've spent harassing me about an evening in front of the telly…"

Donna turned, and realized that positioned in front of the cozy sofa and armchair was an old-fashioned tube television.

She was delighted to discover that the television was jiggery-pokeried up to receive any channel she fancied, and was even still happy when he insisted on watching a documentary on ocean life—"one place I can't really enjoy first-hand, even with the TARDIS!".

About an hour into the show the Doctor shifted from the floor in front of the sofa to practically on top of Donna, where he curled into a ball reminiscent of a sleepy cat.

She supposed it was a sign of how much he trusted her that within another hour he was fast asleep, despite the scintillating marine shenanigans flickering on the screen in front of them.

She eased herself out from under him and turned off the television, then pondered the Doctor.

"I'm not carrying him to bed." she asserted aloud, although not loudly enough to wake the dozing Time Lord. "I'm not."

She put her chin up and left the room in an almost-huff, just to make her point.

The effect was ruined, however, when she returned a few minutes later with a pillow and blanket.

"Now I don't want you making a habit of this, you great lump." she lectured quietly as she straightened him out and put the pillow under his head. "I'm not going to walk around with a blanket in hand just for your sake."

And with that, she tucked the blanket around him and left the room.

She had a more restful sleep than she had in months, that night, and though she would never know it, the Doctor also had a good sleep, after the lights in the den were dimmed and the temperature adjusted.

Because when it came down to it, the TARDIS was a friend, too.


End file.
